MOVIE REVIEW – PROMETHEUS

ANTIMETHEUS

Prometheus

*1/2

Profanity-laced Rant/Review by Charley Rivkin

SPOILERS ABOUND

If you did not end up seeing “Prometheus” – do not continue reading.

My review of (“Prometheus”) or as I’d really like to call it – “Alien: the Bloody Show” –

I, like every other moviegoer out there, am in a constant search for completion. Not sexual per se, but we might as well think of the rapture gained as amazingly similar. There is very little that’s more satisfying than finding a movie that you love. That you connect with. That you can’t stop thinking about. The trailer for “Prometheus” had me on the edge of my seat every single time I watched it, which was repeatedly and often. And then, June 8th came, I went to see it and I thought…

What the fuck!
What the fuck?
Seriously what the fuck!?!

What the fuck, Ridley? Did you forget what happened in your own fucking movie? Is 1979 that fucking long ago? In “Alien”, there was a simple order of events, a mythology that we could understand and a villain that we identified with pure terror. What the fuck was this? I know Ridley Scott is old, but I didn’t think he was too old to forget to pay attention to the fact that you need a fucking story that makes sense in order to have a fucking script that makes sense in order to have a movie that makes fucking sense.

I’m a filmmaker. I’ve written and shot and edited features, shorts and everything in between, and the first thing I have to make sure of when making anything is? Can anyone guess?
Something that makes fucking sense!
I’m sorry, but why does someone who makes a 200 million dollar movie have less of an obligation to make something good? It should be the other way around. Why do I have to labor over a shitty 25k independent film for twelve months when they shit out unintelligible giant steaming piles of movie shit like it was any other bowel movement. CGI and a big budget does not entitle you to not care about what you’re making.
Yeah, I’m talking to you, too, “Battleship”.

Now I did read that this isn’t suppose to be on the same moon that they land on in “Alien”, but if that’s the case, why the fuck make it look exactly like the planet from “Alien”? Were you trying to trick people into coming to the a movie you knew was shit so you thought…”Hey, let’s make it look like ‘Alien’ and people will come!”
Why even bother making a prequel to a movie that doesn’t cover anything that’s worth anything for the future? Not to mention that you fuck up the mythology so much that I’m going to have to try to forget the information in “Prometheus” was even introduced into my brain. Which won’t be hard, ’cause it didn’t even make sense.
Funny thing is that I’m this pissed and I’m not even a very big “Alien” fan!
Fuck!
Fuck!

Can anyone explain how seven ancient civilizations drew five circular points on a wall throughout earth’s history and why that fucking matters? Are five round circles rudimentarily drawn on cave walls suddenly coordinates that are good directions?
TO TRAVEL IN FUCKING SPACE?
With this logic we should fund a multi-trillion dollar expedition based on five freckles that are on my fucking ass. But, I guess this logic is sound because both the movie’s five circles and my butt cheek’s five freckles will lead you to the same destination. A stinky dark place where shit comes out. Fuck this Bloody Show of a movie.

I call it a Bloody Show because that’s the hot pile of genetic material, lumps of cells and blood that is birthed before the baby actually comes out when a real human women is in labor. So in this analogy, I’m going to call “Alien”, the 1979 classic movie, a beautiful baby and “Prometheus” a bloody, messy, over-thought, under-written, over-complicated, un-suspenseful pile of embryonic bullshit.
Oh, it had all of the genetic potential to make life in every single frame of that movie, but alas its just a fucking mess that was pushed out of the vagina of Hollywood, wrapped in a fancy blanket, doctored by a big named director, nursed by an already shit writer (the guy who wrote the very succinct and understandable television show “Lost” (That was sarcasm)) and passed off as an actual Hollywood baby.
BUT IT IS NOT, MOTHER FUCKERS!
It is not!

Fuck you, Damon Lindelof, writer of “Lost”, “Cowboys and Aliens” and “Crossing Jordan”. You were asked to do a simple thing. Write something that happened in this world before we knew it. Go for it, write anything…and you go and fuck up the “Alien” mythology. You basically were told to tell a prequel to the three bears, but instead of writing a story about how bears came to own houses and why they ate porridge you disprove bears’ existence.
Congrats, you’re horrible. I hope your wife beats you at night.

AHHHH….who could like this movie? Did anyone? HOW? I’m reading reviews and a lot of people seem to like it. What the fuck is wrong with you people? This movie is a perfect example of what happens when no one’s career is actually on the line.

Here’s an analogy –
Spielberg makes a prequel to “Jurassic Park” and there are no dinosaurs in it, but there were giant frogs with DNA issues that killed everything they saw, and suddenly in the end of the movie you’re thinking to yourself “Wait…these could be the frogs they got the DNA from to build dinosaurs”. Then at the end of the movie you find out this island is on the moon in the future.

Hey Lindelof….you’re an overpaid monkey banging on a typewriter. Sad part is, I’m pretty sure you made a couple million dollars to disappoint everyone who goes to see this film. So haha, joke’s on us I guess. You’re cashing your fat check after doing no real writing work. Have you ever read a book before? Ever noticed how they make sense? I’d rather you plagiarized someone’s work, killed them and buried the body so you’re never found out than have to watch anything else you ever write from your brain again.

OK Lindelof, here are just a couple of questions I’d like answered as much as those dumb scientists wanted their questions answered:

1. Why are the original Human-Alien’s trying to kill Earth humans? For what purpose? ‘Cause that purpose really didn’t serve this movie. Why have a plot point that doesn’t mean anything to the actual plot? Is it ’cause you’re disguising your inadequacy with unintelligible mythology, adding hundreds of under-thought story lines, none of which actually get answered to just confuse your audience into thinking something big happened?

2. How did this Human-Alien race create us? What the fuck was that scene in the beginning about? Was that where humans started? From that guy dissolving into water? Was that suppose to be Earth?
I can understand and appreciate an ambiguous scene, but not when the rest of the movie is ambiguous and never gives any fucking answers.

3. Why did the Human-Alien wake up and kill everyone with a smile like a serial killer? He Dexter-ed the shit out of everyone. Please understand why this proves you’re a crap writer. Without his actual motivation, its simplistic, one-dimensional and boring.

4. Why did the Human-Alien’s ship have holographic recordings of its history? Besides as an easy out to actually writing a story about investigating what happened there.
I mean…they had scientists on board that study that exact shit they needed to figure out and you didn’t use them for the purpose you created them for.
Good job. For this one, I’m particularly proud of you.

5. Why didn’t the probes pick up the fact that there were earth worms on the ground? And why didn’t they pick up that the snake things were there? Don’t you dare say electrical storm!
Also, was it the worms that turned into the worm things that looked kinda like blind snakes? Haha…fucking earth worms. Really? Let’s make a complicated movie and not explain anything. Smart move.

6. How’d that geologist come back to life after acid burned his mask to his face without any sign on his helmet or face that that had happened?
Actually, this isn’t a writer problem. But still. What did he turn into? Why? The goo turned him into a zombie? Is that what an “Alien” prequel was really lacking? Zombies?

7. Why was a squid growing in her womb? A Fucking squid? No one could have maybe thought of something a little bit more visually interesting or similar to the other mythology that this movie is suppose to be emulating? There was nothing else you could have used?

8. Who or what were the Human-Alien’s running from and why wasn’t that in the hologram. Also…why’d the head of the dead Human-Alien have the mutating goo changing him when they shocked him? Why the fuck did they shock him? What purpose did his head exploding serve?

9. Again…how’d they get those coordinates out of five circles in a cave? Was there some sort of cave drawing mathematics I missed in 3rd grade that led them to believe that five circles were strong enough coordinates for directions thirty trillion miles away? I can barely drive from five miles without having to type forty-five different things into my GPS. Five poorly drawn circles on a cave wall?
Drawn.
By primitive cultures.
On a cave wall.
In crayon.
Really?
Fucking “Lost” writer.

10. Why did David poison that scientist? For a robot this was easily the most dangerous and reckless behavior ever. Weyland was ON the spacecraft and he straight up endangers everyone, including his maker by doing that. And if you say he KNEW that they were going to have sex and make a squid baby you can take your balls in your hand and squeeze them hard enough to see spots. Cause that, my overpaid writing guru, is not good writing.
I wish Hank Moody were alive and real so he could come up and bitch slap you for attempting to destroy the very concept of story telling and pass them off as genius.

11. Why didn’t you at least show Idris Elba fucking Charlize Theron. That at least woulda been interesting. Also…what purpose did Charlize’s character serve?
Anything?
Nothing?
Nothing!
OK, that’s what I thought.

12. Why didn’t you at least stay true to what was established in “Alien”?
There was such a beautiful simplicity to the killing machines that were the aliens. Why’d you go and fuck it up so bad that I’d like to go back in time and erase you? Without the simplicity, you lost all form of danger for the audience. For us.
For the characters in the movie…well, they just died quick and easily and fast. See a snake.
Die.
Drink a drop of black goo.
Die.
Et cetera to the point of boredom.

13. What the fuck was that goo? Really? You invented a goo that mutates things into other things. That’s the big thing? My four-year old niece writes better stories out in crayons. They have beginnings, middles and yup…endings that make sense. Why? Cause she’s smarter than you.
But why not have a universal order of evolution here with this black goo? It infects people. Those infected create a version of a face hugger, the face huggers mouthfuck and impregnate something, the baby is born from the body of whatever was mouth-fucked. Seems like a simple order of events. Did we really need zombies over a simple evolutional order establishing the mythology of “Alien”?
So if this was the case, what would a worm alien have looked like coming out of their chest? It woulda been the worm/human/alien hybrid version of an alien. Right? That would have been fucking awesome. Just like we got the dog alien in “Alien 3”. Isn’t that how this movie should have gone? Showing us a glimpse of the inner workings of this universe?

15. And lastly – Where was any form of suspense?

And don’t blame this on the editing. There’s no way those guys forgot to put ALL of this shit in there.

I’m disenchanted with the fact that I have to ask ALL these questions. The worst part is there’s probably another hundred questions I didn’t ask mainly because I’m tired of writing a shitty review.
I consider myself a smart movie watching mother fucker. I’m the one that usually gets the very subtle nuance that passes over peoples heads. I have defended the likes of Michael Bay, Brett Ratner and even, on rare occasions, M. Night Shyamalan’s most recent bloody shows….but all I can ascertain about what the fuck happened in “Prometheus”…is –

And finally a Synopsis in my own words –

PROMETHEUS –
Human-Aliens came to earth and created us. I think. Maybe. Then seven ancient civilizations drew five circles on cave walls for reasons left unknown…especially to the writer of this movie, and then these scientists in the future thought it was a map, convinced a guy to spend a trillion dollars based on five circles in seven caves as coordinates and boom, we’re in space.
They land, go into ruins and activate black goo that starts mutating everything it touches into fuck-if-I-know…things that kill you.
The shit back story that I could pull from the movie is that the goo the Human-Aliens created was suppose to mutate life?
Or kill it?
Or something?
Whatever.
Idris Elba at one point speculated that it was their version of biological warfare, but that’s like me saying Stonehenge was built for sacrifices. Is it true? Maybe? Should anyone believe that that’s exactly what it is? NO. Cause I’m speculating.
So anyway.
They screwed up and it started attacking the Human-Aliens? Again, I didn’t really get if it turned into aliens on them, just infected them or what, because they were supposedly set to go to earth and kill everyone on earth and even when that sleeping Human-Alien woke up he still wanted to go to earth and destroy the humans…that’s not exactly the behavior of someone who’s entire race was wiped out by a biological weapon.
Now, before they could launch an attack on earth for no reason, the goo mutated into supposed aliens we never see, stopping them from coming and destroying Earth with a whole ship full of mutating goo. Then Dr. Shaw has a squid baby which ends up being a giant face hugger and mouth fucks the Human-Alien to have a new kind of alien (something similar to what we’re familiar with from the original movie, but in no means is anything like it). It cuts through his chest from neck to groin.
And everyone dies.
The End!
No? You think someone lives?
You’re gonna say Dr. Shaw lives?
Wrong, mother fuckers.
Dr. Shaw, our heroine and the mother of the squid abortion, got onto a ship that did NOT have oxygen. The only breathable air on the planet was coming from the terra-forming in the domes and water that filter out the CO2. So I will conclude with…
And everyone dies!!!

The saddest part of all is that “Snow White and the Huntsman” was better than this movie.
Now that is fucking clown shoes!

Let me reiterate the rules of these movies.

Send people in space. Uncover monster. Get hunted by monster rest of the movie. Everyone dies but one girl. She wins. End of fucking movie you fucktard writer.

The sad part about this movie is that it could have been redeemed with a twenty minute rewrite. Granted…it wouldn’t have solved every problem, but take this quick change I just thought of in an angry text to the editor.

Instead of having the Human-Aliens be psycho killers, why not have the guy in stasis be in stasis to keep the alien in his chest from popping out. And he’s angry when he’s awoken, but doesn’t go on a killing spree. He tries to get everyone to help him really quickly and no one knows why he’s so angry and acting erratic. He turns the ship on and jumps into the big gun chair to try and destroy the other incubating chambers when an ALIEN (the one we know and love) pops out of his chest, knocks the ship into auto-drive, sending it to earth…where our heroine, Dr. Shaw, and the last survivors of this inhabitable movie have to stop the alien and the ship from plunging into the earth with an alien, or even aliens and the goo on board.

Wow. Was that so fucking hard? Writing something that makes sense?

With this, at least the last act of the movie held with the same suspense and thrill as what we all loved from “Alien”.

Give me another twenty minutes on the shitter thinking about this and I’m sure I could solve another third of the movie’s problems.

So my final rating of “Prometheus” is 1 and 1/2 stars.
It is beautiful. I can’t say it wasn’t great to see all this really cool shit on screen. Especially the landscapes, that are easily the most amazing and realistic 3D landscape shots of an alien planet.

See this movie if you love “Alien”, but don’t come running to me if you’re disappointed in the story. I did warn you. But….

….and this is a big but.

I think I can save this movie for you and restore it to a full four star status. Mainly for its visual aspects.

Wait for the movie to come out on beautiful HD or BluRay…plop down on the couch with all your fixin’s of a good evening in, pop in some Medeski Martin and Wood or some Pink Floyd, turn down the volume on the movie and turn up the music and enjoy the visual beauty of this stunning film.

Or leave the sound on and be disappointed.
Your choice.

Directed by: Ridley Scott
Release Date: June 8, 2012
Run Time: 124 Minutes
Country: USA
Rated: R
Distributor: 20th Century Fox

OFFICIAL TRAILER